So,

 

This is what is going on. I am brand new to web design/development and as a first project to undertake my girlfriend has decided she would like a site based around dog/animal advice photos etc. Anyways, I quickly dived right in to Photoshop and hammered out a Rough design that she was happy about. After I finished the layout of a homepage, I worked on cutting up the psd and assigning images to divs in the css. And this is what i ended up with...

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31103491/Angelas%20Site%20-%20Copy/index.html

 

 

About this time my girlfriend turns to me and says,

"how am I supposed to edit this and add new content while your at work..."

Seeing how she is the least patient person that I know, I realized that it was a good point. Rather than trying to teach her basic html/css, which when you look at my source code you will see I barely grasp, I decided to take a look at other services such as wordpress.

 

So wordpress.com i find out is basically predesigned templates only. Wordpress.org, from what i could gather has all the nuts and bolts but requires you to be running your own webserver. Futhermore I did not really understand if it would give her the ability to edit the content easily if I went through the trouble of creating a template.

 

So in summary, what i am looking for, is some sort of system that would allow me to create a site from the ground up and then have a nice control console integrated that would allow for user friendly update ability so that my girlfriend can load any content and pics with a minimal learning curve.

 

It is also quite possible that I don't really understand what i'm asking for and such a thing does not exist.

 

 

Thoughts?

I did not really understand if it would give her the ability to edit the content easily if I went through the trouble of creating a template

 

In short - Yes it would.

 

Wordpress in it's basic form is a blogging platform (of course, it can be tailored for much more than that), but from previous experience, Wordpress is extremely easy to grasp from a bloggers point of view. They log in, add a new post, type out their content and hit publish. Thats it.

 

How that content is displayed, however, would be down you my friend. If you're a bit dubious about taking the plunge, then a simple Google search should give you a good footing to progress.

 

Take it from me, creating themes for Wordpress is a lot easier than it first appears. If it's your first time dabbling with the platform, perhaps you could download a pre-existing theme and modify it. This way you'll learn the basics of the loop, and how to manipulate it for your own needs.

If you're going to take the plunge with some kind of CMS (content management system) then WordPress is an excellent place to start. There's a wide range of reference and tuition material on the web and it's actually fun to learn and to get into.

 

WordPress is often considered just a bloggin platform but there's actually no limit on what you can do with it.

 

Based on what you've told us it sounds exactly what you need.

 

If you can't find what you need on the web, let me know, I have a WordPress reference and tutorial disc and I give out to clients.

 

......just to add, that's not such a bad first attempt. I can remember my first attempt and it was way worse than that!!!

Edited August 31, 201114 yr by Garyw24

Cushy CMS - http://www.cushycms.com/en/static/demo

Thanks for the quick replys! It sounds like that really would be the way to go. After work today I will have to brew some tea and start to dig in. Also if anyone gets a chance I would appreciate some feedback on my html, css if I have picked up any bad habits, or am perhaps I am doing something that is out dated.

Another plus for Wordpress from me. The codex is a goldmine of information and will give you a pretty good answer on pretty much anything.

I also heard of joomla, do they offer mostly the same thing? Or is it completely different?

Edited August 31, 201114 yr by Andrew Naumann

It's mostly the same thing. More concentrated on being a CMS as opposed to a blogging platform but it's pretty much the same. Been quite a while since I last worked with Joomla but when I did I found it a little bit clunky and overbearing to work with. That could have been what it was like back then, could have been my lack of experience at the time.. I don't know. Wordpress just seems leaner to me.

Also if anyone gets a chance I would appreciate some feedback on my html, css if I have picked up any bad habits, or am perhaps I am doing something that is out dated.

 

Had a quick look and from the off it's not bad really imo. You could improve on your CSS though. Try to use CSS rather than images to create things where possible. For instance you background image for your main content area is massive. You could replace that with a 1px wide strip and the repeat it horizontally. You could create the gray content area with css and it would scale with the content. Very easily done, and with CSS3 you could do gradient as well as the drop shadow too.

 

Goodluck,

~evu.

 

^lolgrammer

Edited August 31, 201114 yr by evu

Had a quick look and from the off it's not bad really imo. You could improve on your CSS though. Try to use CSS rather than images to create things where possible. For instance you background image for your main content area is massive. You could replace that with a 1px wide strip and the repeat it horizontally. You could create the gray content area with css and it would scale with the content. Very easily done, and with CSS3 you could do gradient as well as the drop shadow too.

 

Goodluck,

~evu.

 

^lolgrammer

 

Thanks! that's a great tip, i will look into that. Using CSS to draw images makes sence that would probably help a lot on load times.

Edited September 1, 201114 yr by Andrew Naumann